SENTINEL WATCH October 7, 2002 ISSUE

From barriers to bridges

By Marta Greenwood

The Iran-Iraq War began in 1980, lasted eight years, and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. It was one of the great human tragedies of recent Middle Eastern history.

I was born in Iran, and I emigrated to the UK when I was 18. I was living in London during the years of the Iran-Iraq War; and in spite of our cultural conflicts, most of my best friends were Iraqis. Nevertheless, during the war, we supported each other in friendship, even though both of our countries (where most of our families still lived) were being destroyed day by day.